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trust & public officials
May. 15th, 2009 10:33 amYesterday, I posted this to Twitter:
...between a politician and the CIA, which one would you assume is more likely to be lying? would D or R politician change the answer?
There's a pretty interesting discussion of the subject on my Facebook wall (kill me now, I said there was something interesting on Facebook). As a number of people guessed, this was sparked by the Pelosi-CIA situation about waterboarding.
It's a complex story, so I'll summarize for those who haven't spent some time reading up. The CIA claims that Nancy Pelosi was briefed in February 2002 that they were using "enhanced interrogation techniques" (ie torture) on terrorism detainees. At the time, she was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. In late summer 2003 she was elected House Minority Leader, which meant she left the Intelligence Committee (where she was replaced by Rep. Jane Harman as the ranking Democrat). Additionally, the CIA says that in September 2003, they briefed a Pelosi staffer and Rep. Jane Harman on their use of waterboarding. Harman was so upset by the revelations that she wrote a letter of protest to the President and the CIA about it.
The reason this is in the news now is that the Republicans are claiming Pelosi was complicit in torture, and thus has no grounds to call for a Truth Commission to investigate the Bush administration.
This Politico article has more details.
I have a complex reaction to the story. On the one hand, Pelosi is claiming that the CIA misled her in 2002 and all they really said is that the Bush administration was claiming legal basis for the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, *not* that they were actually using them. Given my understanding of and assumptions about the CIA culture, I imagine this to be true. Not only that, but she was legally bound not to let the information out to the public. She wasn't the Minority Whip at the time, just a House rep, so she didn't have a whole lot of power even if she had somehow managed to let the information slip. Additionally, she was probably engaged in an extremely delicate and complicated situation as she vied to become the Minority Whip when Gephardt retired in 2003. Even if she did know, I'm not sure I blame her. My guess is that she was briefed in a misleading way, but also probably chose the path of willful ignorance.
One thing I do really admire about Pelosi is how well she's kept the Democrats together on votes. I don't always agree with her choices (let's face it, I'm not exactly a centrist), but the way she's kept the party together is extremely difficult and has been significantly more effective than previous party leadership. Her operation strategy largely seems to be that so long as something on her agenda gets done, it doesn't matter who does it. She's been willing to take political hits for unpopular actions because she's in a very safe district, but she gets other reps to do as much as possible without her name on the action. While I don't always like where she goes, I do admire how she leads. On this theme, I don't have a problem with her not adding her own signature to Harman's letter of protest.
At the same time, yeah, it kind of does make her a hypocrite.
The big thing I'm worried about is that Republicans - mostly people who outright condone torture - will use this to block the Truth Commission. Whether or not Pelosi is something of a hypocrite (which, shouldn't that be obvious by now? after all, this is the woman who blocked Bush impeachment) shouldn't matter to whether or not we call these assholes out. A Truth Commission is important for us to heal some of the wounds of the last 8 years. Even if it's half-assed and biased, I'd like to live in a country that at least investigates some high ranking criminals.
All of this made me wonder about how much trust we place in government officials. In general, I assume that politicians and CIA members and similar persons will be lying a certain percentage of the time. Some will lie for scandalous reasons (adultery and prostitution and homosexuality, oh my!), some will lie for financial reasons (Haliburton, etc.), some will lie for perceived reasons of national security (weapons development, troop deployments, spies, interrogations, etc.). While I don't agree with everything perceived to be a national security risk, I do support lying about some of this stuff - for example, I don't think that weapons in development or troop deployments need to be on the national news, that's just basic security.
So just how much do politicians and the CIA lie? Do Republicans and Democrats lie the same percentage of the time? Do they lie about the same things, or different things? Do you think politicians or the CIA lie more frequently? Which of these lies do you care about (for example, I really don't care when politicians sleep with prostitutes except that they keep pushing anti-sexwork legislation)? What percentage and types of these lies do you think are justified, if any?
I know a number of my friends and readers here are anarchists who want to entirely remove the system. If you're going to answer the questions above, do so within the constraints of our current political system. Whether we should get rid of the system or not is a totally different discussion, and the role of truth and deception in a different system would obviously make for a different set of answers.
...between a politician and the CIA, which one would you assume is more likely to be lying? would D or R politician change the answer?
There's a pretty interesting discussion of the subject on my Facebook wall (kill me now, I said there was something interesting on Facebook). As a number of people guessed, this was sparked by the Pelosi-CIA situation about waterboarding.
It's a complex story, so I'll summarize for those who haven't spent some time reading up. The CIA claims that Nancy Pelosi was briefed in February 2002 that they were using "enhanced interrogation techniques" (ie torture) on terrorism detainees. At the time, she was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. In late summer 2003 she was elected House Minority Leader, which meant she left the Intelligence Committee (where she was replaced by Rep. Jane Harman as the ranking Democrat). Additionally, the CIA says that in September 2003, they briefed a Pelosi staffer and Rep. Jane Harman on their use of waterboarding. Harman was so upset by the revelations that she wrote a letter of protest to the President and the CIA about it.
The reason this is in the news now is that the Republicans are claiming Pelosi was complicit in torture, and thus has no grounds to call for a Truth Commission to investigate the Bush administration.
This Politico article has more details.
I have a complex reaction to the story. On the one hand, Pelosi is claiming that the CIA misled her in 2002 and all they really said is that the Bush administration was claiming legal basis for the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, *not* that they were actually using them. Given my understanding of and assumptions about the CIA culture, I imagine this to be true. Not only that, but she was legally bound not to let the information out to the public. She wasn't the Minority Whip at the time, just a House rep, so she didn't have a whole lot of power even if she had somehow managed to let the information slip. Additionally, she was probably engaged in an extremely delicate and complicated situation as she vied to become the Minority Whip when Gephardt retired in 2003. Even if she did know, I'm not sure I blame her. My guess is that she was briefed in a misleading way, but also probably chose the path of willful ignorance.
One thing I do really admire about Pelosi is how well she's kept the Democrats together on votes. I don't always agree with her choices (let's face it, I'm not exactly a centrist), but the way she's kept the party together is extremely difficult and has been significantly more effective than previous party leadership. Her operation strategy largely seems to be that so long as something on her agenda gets done, it doesn't matter who does it. She's been willing to take political hits for unpopular actions because she's in a very safe district, but she gets other reps to do as much as possible without her name on the action. While I don't always like where she goes, I do admire how she leads. On this theme, I don't have a problem with her not adding her own signature to Harman's letter of protest.
At the same time, yeah, it kind of does make her a hypocrite.
The big thing I'm worried about is that Republicans - mostly people who outright condone torture - will use this to block the Truth Commission. Whether or not Pelosi is something of a hypocrite (which, shouldn't that be obvious by now? after all, this is the woman who blocked Bush impeachment) shouldn't matter to whether or not we call these assholes out. A Truth Commission is important for us to heal some of the wounds of the last 8 years. Even if it's half-assed and biased, I'd like to live in a country that at least investigates some high ranking criminals.
All of this made me wonder about how much trust we place in government officials. In general, I assume that politicians and CIA members and similar persons will be lying a certain percentage of the time. Some will lie for scandalous reasons (adultery and prostitution and homosexuality, oh my!), some will lie for financial reasons (Haliburton, etc.), some will lie for perceived reasons of national security (weapons development, troop deployments, spies, interrogations, etc.). While I don't agree with everything perceived to be a national security risk, I do support lying about some of this stuff - for example, I don't think that weapons in development or troop deployments need to be on the national news, that's just basic security.
So just how much do politicians and the CIA lie? Do Republicans and Democrats lie the same percentage of the time? Do they lie about the same things, or different things? Do you think politicians or the CIA lie more frequently? Which of these lies do you care about (for example, I really don't care when politicians sleep with prostitutes except that they keep pushing anti-sexwork legislation)? What percentage and types of these lies do you think are justified, if any?
I know a number of my friends and readers here are anarchists who want to entirely remove the system. If you're going to answer the questions above, do so within the constraints of our current political system. Whether we should get rid of the system or not is a totally different discussion, and the role of truth and deception in a different system would obviously make for a different set of answers.
